A widely used form of cable stranding apparatus comprises a hollow shaft through which a core strand is drawn continually while the shaft is rotated to swing several spools of wire around the core strand. The wire from the spools is drawn off and fed helically around the core strand after it emerges from within the hollow rotating shaft. The movement of the central core strand controls the rate of travel of the wire from the spools, and frictional braking action on the spools provides back tension to keep the wires taut, and to prevent the spools from unwinding excessively when the machine as a whole is slowed down. This system is used, for example, to strand aluminum conductor wires around a supporting core of a stronger material, such as steel or a higher strength aluminum alloy. If the conductor wire has enough temper or strengthening alloy to endure relatively high back tension during part of this procedure, it is possible to operate this system on a commercially satisfactory basis. However, it is sometimes desirable to strand relatively weak conductor wires around the core, such as when fully annealed EC aluminum alloy is stranded around a steel core, and, in that case, the conventional system may not work satisfactorily without slowing down and suffering the penalty of reduced output. One aspect of this problem is the fact that the spools of wire have substantial mass, and when these spools are rotated around the central shaft their angular momentum is considerable. This imposes an added load which increases the frictional resistance of the bearings on which the spools are journaled for rotation about their own axes. This increased frictional force increases the tension in the wires being drawn from spools. Also, as the wire from each spool is drawn off, the diameter of the outer winding of wire on the spool decreases, and this has the effect of increasing the tension in the wire for any given amount of frictional resistance of the spool bearings.